Category Archives: American History

[NOTE: Both during my teaching career and since I retired from the classroom, I have been fascinated by the history of the Civil Rights Movement. I decided early on that, if my students were to understand the accomplishments of the … Continue reading →

[NOTE: As I’ve explained elsewhere (for example, here and here), some of my “adventures in interdisciplinary land” came in response to requests from colleagues in other disciplines asking for help in dealing with an “historical” issue. Here is another example, … Continue reading →

[Note: The first post in this series discussed the Yazoo land fraud and its consequences between 1795 and 1815 or so. This part carries the story through the late 1830s, when Georgia, strongly supported by President Andrew Jackson, finally realized … Continue reading →

[NOTE: The Yazoo land fraud was the key issue in my doctoral dissertation (and the book that grew out of it), which treated the evolution of political parties in Georgia between the American Revolution and 1806. And yet, the Yazoo … Continue reading →

[Note: In a previous post in this series, I discussed how certain personal eccentricities helped me construct a “classroom persona,” one “Dr.,” beard, polyester suit, and awful pun at a time. In this entry, I’d like to offer a few … Continue reading →

A Review of William Rawlings, A Killing on Ring Jaw Bluff: The Great Recession and the Death of Small-town Georgia. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2013. * * * * * [At his website, William Rawlings bills himself as an … Continue reading →

[NOTE: In a previous post in this series, I saluted the two best teachers I’ve ever had, Miss Gertrude Weaver (high school) and Professor James Rabun (graduate school). In addition to deep knowledge of history and loads of energy and … Continue reading →

[NOTE: In a two-part series in The American Historian, David Arnold reviews a recent movement aimed at reforming the way history is taught in colleges and universities. An eighteen-year veteran of teaching history in a community college, Professor Arnold’s average … Continue reading →

A Review of Stephen Calt, I’d Rather Be the Devil: Skip James + the Blues. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2008. His music was the defiant product of an emotional hermit: “I wanted it different all the way—I always have had … Continue reading →

[NOTE: When I posted Part VI of this series, I thought it was the concluding installment. And then I returned to a notion advanced in Part I: Betts had been a “late-blooming historian.” I still wondered about her decision to undertake … Continue reading →